


Crash Course

by futureboy (PokeRowan)



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: 80s references absolutely EVERYWHERE with no regrets, Babysitting, Friendship, Gen, Good Person Steve Harrington, No Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-04-28 18:57:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14455677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PokeRowan/pseuds/futureboy
Summary: Hopper has to go out of town for a week and needs someone responsible to check in on El.Unfortunately, no-one in Hawkins fits that criteria, so he calls on Steve Harrington.





	1. Day 1

**March 22nd, 1985 - Friday**

 

Hopper’s desperate.

He can’t miss another one; it’s too suspicious. The Police Chiefs of Indiana have invited him to _another_ leadership convention, hoping he’ll give a talk on how to stomach media attention during a high profile case, and he can’t miss it. Not only is it getting uncomfortably rude to refuse the committee who run the event, it’s getting weird in the station now folk are starting to realise he never leaves Hawkins.

...A whole _week_ , though.

El is more than capable of handling herself. That much has been proven already. But she shouldn’t have to, and he doesn’t want to be another adult in a long line that have failed her, so if he has to go to this damn conference he’s gonna need some support. Hopper would appreciate, more strongly than he’s willing to admit to anyone, if someone would drop in for a few hours to make sure she’s alright.

Hoping he looks more like a responsible adult rather than a huge creep, he watches the teenagers filter out of the high school. The Hargrove kid gives him a dirty look, roaring by in his blue noise machine like a little asshole - Hopper tips the brim of his hat sarcastically. Nasty piece of work, that one.

Not who he’s here for, though.

Steve Harrington wanders out of Hawkins High alone, shouldering his rucksack and fumbling his car keys.

“Hey. Harrington.”

Steve whirls around. He’s just as alarmed as Hopper thought he would be, and it’s written all over his face: _another Demogorgon, more Upside Down, some other child having fallen victim to that dark place_ \--

“Calm down,” Hopper says, and taps his hand against the door of his cruiser, dangling his whole arm out the open window. “It’s nothing huge. Just a favour. Okay?”

“Okay,” says Steve, and climbs in the passenger side.

Hopper stares.

“...The hell are you doing?”

“Oh,” says Steve. “I… I don’t know. I just thought, y’know, secret favours, and rendezvous stuff, and you’d rolled up outside school like a cool undercover agent… This is, uh, how they do it in the movies. So… yeah.”

Hop doesn’t have the energy to tell him to get out. “Listen,” he starts, “I need you to do something for me. I’ve tried everyone else and you’re pretty much my only option.”

“Yeah?”

He closes the cruiser window - feeling less cool now, admittedly, due to the vigorous roll-action he had to employ on the handle. “The kid,” he says simply. “I gotta go out of town ‘til next Friday, and I need someone to drop in. Make sure she hasn’t brought the whole place down around her.”

“Why me?” Steve asks. He seems sincere, and Hopper berates himself for the stab of pity that shoots through him, because Steve _was_ his fallback option.

“Joyce Byers is working tonight and has two boys of her own,” he lists off, “and I’ll be honest - I can’t trust anyone else like I could trust you with it.”

Steve’s eyebrows rocket into his ridiculously thick hairline.

“I’m serious. Think about it. The Wheeler girl is too close to Mike. Jonathan Byers would do anything for his little brother - _who’d do anything for Mike_. Capiche?”

“You don’t want them to bust her out,” Steve realises.

“Those kids are scary organised. I wanna avoid the prison break scenario,” Hopper says.

Steve bobs his head from side to side, thinking it over, and finally nods. “Okay, Chief,” he says, “I’ll bite. What’s the catch?”

“No catch. Just some rules.”

Hopper rummages through the stack of maps in the side pocket of the cruiser, and pulls out a crudely drawn one in red and black pen. It looks like a damn pirate map. “Here’s where you can find her - _don’t lose this_. I’ve marked the tripwires, and there’s a secret knock so she knows you’re meant to be there.”

He raps it out on the dashboard. Steve tentatively copies.

“This is _so_ cool.”

Hopper shoots him a look that reads: _shut up_.

“Am I cooking?” Steve asks instead. “Or, like, tutoring or something?”

What a pleasant surprise. “That’d be great. She does all these workbooks and stuff, but you’re in school, you know what’s important and what’s crap. Better than I would, anyway,” he clarifies, when Steve’s eyebrows shoot up again. “Just… Talk to her. You know? It’ll be nice for her to see a face that isn’t mine for once.”

“I… Yeah. you got it, Chief.”

“Try not to take the same route over there every day, either. If anyone _is_ keeping watch, then you shouldn’t establish a routine.”

“Got it.”

“And don’t tell any of those damn kids!” Hopper calls after him, as Steve pops the cruiser door open and clambers back out into the afternoon.

Steve claps a hand against the frame of the car, and leans back down inside the interior. His face says _obviously I won’t, because I’m not certifiably insane._ “I’ll swing by around six,” he says. “That okay?”

And when Hopper nods, Steve pushes the door shut with a firm shove.

It only hits Steve as he’s pulling into his own driveway - and, across town, Hopper is having a similar realisation - that neither thought to discuss any kind of payment. And to his further surprise, Steve finds that he’s not really that bothered about it.

 

* * *

 

 

At five fifty-eight PM, because Steve expects that Mike Wheeler’s girlfriend is probably the kind of kid who keeps count, he narrowly avoids tripping over the alarm system, and does his best to replicate the secret knock on the cabin door. A gigantic splinter lodges itself in the knuckle of his pinky finger, and he’s still shaking out the pain when the door swings open.

Steve stops in his tracks.

Gone is the slicked back hair and the charcoal-black makeup smudges. Standing cautiously in the warm glow, cast by lamplight over the couches and blankets of the main room, is a skinny almost-teenager. Tube socks and dungarees hang off her tiny frame; a puff of dark hair, like the shadow of a dandelion, frames her face.

The eyes are the same. Suspicious. Ready to strike, if necessary.

“So,” says Steve, and cringes at how awkward he sounds.

There’s a pause, before a very hopeful:

“...Eggos?”

“What? No, _hell_ no, the Chief would kill me,” Steve says.

El continues to look thunderous, and Steve’s regretting every action he’s ever carried out which led him to this point - and then she relents with an awfully adolescent eye-roll. “Proper meal,” she says, sounding annoyed. The door slams shut behind Steve, making him jump, and he watches in fascination as the locks re-lock themselves.

She wanders back over to the tiny dining table - it’s littered with paper. Booklets. God, Steve hasn’t seen one of those _Dick and Jane_ books for years. ‘More Fun With Our Friends’, it’s called. There’s another one about a sheepdog, and some tatty looking British ‘early reading’ books. A half-filled in handwriting practice workbook, and an in-progress early sums.

“Math?” he asks.

“Math,” she confirms wearily.

Steve makes a face. It gets a laugh.

He drops into the chair opposite her - and, Jesus, wasn’t _that_ a weird thought, to be sitting where Chief Hopper probably ate his dinner. El definitely looks comfortable enough, although he totally understands how she could outgrow this house. Steve’s feeling a little too big for the Harrington home these days. Monsters and whatever seemed to have a hand in both of their maturing.

“How’s life?” Steve starts with, and immediately wants to have said something totally different.

El shrugs. She draws a shaky ‘5’ in the _‘5 x 1’_ box.

“Yeah, I bet. Getting ready for school?”

Silence.

“Look,” Steve tries, leaning forwards on his elbows. “How you managed all that stuff last winter - hell, the winter before, too - that’s hardcore of you. Seriously.”

This finally gets a little frown. El looks up, halfway through the number ‘20’, and says, _“hardcore?”_

“Yeah,” says Steve, “like, you were strong and cool and you saved the day, even though it must’ve been really tough. Hardcore is like when something’s totally in your face and dramatic.”

It earns him a little grin, so he flexes a bicep and purses his lips, and that upgrades it into a laugh.

“I know I’m not your first choice to come hang out with you,” he continues, “but we can still have fun and stuff, if you want. I’ll even do dinner if you wanna keep working on your math.”

“Yes please,” she says softly, and god, isn’t that the cutest thing ever. Kiddo’s got manners.

“You got it.”

Steve scrapes his chair back as he strolls over to the kitchen worktop, and stops in his damn tracks when he sees the trays Hopper’s left out.

“Do you have this every night?”

“Hm?”

“I know it’s short notice, me coming here,” he says, gesturing at the TV dinners, “but damn, we’re not eating this crap all week.”

“It’s okay,” El protests, “but the peas are--”

“They’re not even real peas. It’s frozen _bullshit_ ,” Steve asserts. “Hopper can’t really cook, can he?”

El is all the way turned around in her chair now, twisted so she can lean over the backrest. “...He can do breakfast.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Alright, well… Tomorrow,” he says, “tomorrow, we’re cooking something real, kid.”

And, when she scowls dubiously, adds:

“I _promise_. Okay?”

This satisfies her.

Steve flicks the oven ignition a few times, waiting for the clicks to even out into a flame, and El returns to her multiplication tables. It was looking to be the start of an easy seven days.


	2. Day 2

**March 23rd, 1985 - Saturday**

 

At four forty-five, after trudging through the beginning of a damp weekend, Steve hammers his elbow into the cabin door and backs in ass-first when it opens.

“Hey, kid,” he says, muffled behind a paper grocery bag. “Today’s gonna blow your mind.”

“Blow my mind?” El repeats, watching in bewilderment as he dumps his winnings on the surface by the refrigerator.

It suddenly dawns on Steve that whilst Hopper is an idiom kinda guy, he probably doesn’t use a lot of slang that a high-schooler might. “Yeah,” he explains, “like, it’s gonna wow you. You’re gonna be impressed. Uh… I hope.”

El steps into place beside him and jabs her hand into the bag. It resurfaces, holding a block of cheese. She adds it to the growing pile of groceries - carrots, onions, a pack of ham. A large tin of chopped tomatoes. Steve folds up the bag and dusts off his hands.

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s turn this place into _Dinner at Julia’s_.”

“Food show,” El nods.

“Got it in one! That’s the idea, kid.” He starts rummaging around in the cupboards: “you got a chopping board?”

Steve sets her up cutting onions, and spills some oil into a deep pan so the vegetables can go on whenever they want. The two of them both end up laughing when she tries to discreetly wipe onion tears from her eyes.

“The great part about pasta sauce is that you can make up tons of it,” Steve explains, “and you can put almost anything you want in it. Chilis, fish, different kinds of vegetables... And then you can freeze it for later. Or you can put it in Tupperware with cooked pasta and heat it up for lunch the next day.”

“I didn’t know you could cook,” says El.

“I can survive,” he shrugs. “Mostly I just know what stuff can keep. My dad’s the worst for wasting food, it’s one of those things that really pisses me off.”

El snorts at his swearing. The knife wobbles dangerously.

“Hey, _hey_ , point down if you’re not chopping, you’ll nick yourself. Or me.”

The onions are pretty much diced and done, so he shows her how to scrape them into the pan and then sets her frying them.

“What do I call you, by the way?”

“Hm?”

Steve fishes a tin opener out of the cutlery drawer and waves it around vaguely. “Well, the kids call you ‘El’, but your name is a number, right? I kind of assumed the Chief would’ve changed it for school.”

“It’s Jane,” she says. Steve can’t figure out if she likes that or not - the word feels heavy, like it’s been weighed down with history.

“And what do you _want_ me to call you?” he clarifies.

She tops and tails a carrot like she’s been doing it all her life. “El is good,” she nods. “I like El.”

“It’s not a number to you?”

“No,” she says. “I wasn’t Jane Ives. I didn’t want to be Eleven. I’m Jane Hopper _now_ , but Mike called me El.”

“ _Mike_ called you El?”

“Yes.”

Man. That whole thing went deeper than Steve had realised, apparently. “That’s cute,” he says, and El unexpectedly flushes. “You keep El, then. Say it’s a nickname or something.”

“I will,” she grins, and keeps the vegetables moving in the pan.

They spend the whole afternoon like that - by six, they’ve got four portions of pasta, three portions of vegetable stir fry (Steve measured out too much rice) and are just about to crack open some eggs for omelettes.

“Grab the ham and cheese,” Steve says. El’s already complained about actually being hungry now, with all of their creations taunting her, so it’s time to show her how to whip up a killer dinner. “This one doesn’t keep, so I saved it for last.”

“Not heating up?”

“Noooo,” Steve warns, “ _please_ don’t poison yourself. You definitely don’t reheat meat more than once, and egg doesn’t do so well the second time around. Oh, _shit_ \--”

He cracks an egg into a jug, but a piece of shell slips in, like shrapnel cast from enthusiasm. To his initial horror, and then morbid fascination, he watches it resurface and float into the trash.

El grins. “Can I try?”

“With magic?” he asks, because holy crap, it’s likely he shouldn’t be encouraging this, but it’s _awesome_. “Be my guest.”

It’s funnier than it should be, the sight of a something-teen year old child scowling at an egg until it does her bidding. But lo and behold, it submits, and promptly smushes everywhere.

“Oh,” says El, sounding disappointed. “Sorry.”

Steve hurriedly wipes up the yolk goo and shell fragments with a dishcloth. “No problem, kid. Have another go if you want.” _Please. Because this is the tightest shit ever._

This time, the egg splits exactly in two, like someone laser-cut the shell in half perfectly. The white and yolk slip into the bowl, as neat as can be.

“Good?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, grinning like it’s Christmas Day and he’s ten, “that’s great. You wanna whisk?”

“By hand?”

“...Probably for the best.”

Steve shows her how to angle the bowl just right so the egg comes out fluffy, and then helps her tip it into the pan when the ham’s lightly cooked through. When he finally folds it over and they sprinkle the cheese on it, she watches raptly as it bubbles and spits and browns.

“You ready?” he asks, and is answered by a super loud stomach gurgle. Preteens, man. They got _scary_ hungry.

“It’s good,” she smiles, between shovel-sized forkfuls of egg.

“Glad to hear it. Think your lunch now is gonna be a bit more exciting than sandwiches?”

He gets a big nod and another huge mouthful in response. Well, that’s pretty encouraging.

Steve leaves the cabin in a ridiculously proud mood - he never thought he’d be any good at teaching, if he’s honest, but the skill seems to be coming naturally to him all of a sudden. He really hopes the streak of success continues, because he’s enjoying babysitting El more than he thought.

His dad, in what should have been a predictable move, is set to ruin it all.

“You been smoking?” he barks.

Steve’s only just come through the front door. He pulls off his sneakers, and says, “good evening to you, too, Dad--”

 _“Steve_. _”_

“No,” he says irritably, “I haven’t been _smoking_ , jeez.”

“You smell of smoke.”

“I smell of _cooking_ , I had food out. I told you I was gonna. It’s not a big deal, Dad, c’mon...”

His father scowls, and returns to watching the TV. When Steve treks his way upstairs, he tries to remember that he’ll be out of here soon. So, so soon. Screw working for the family business - he’s gotta hotfoot it away from this house as soon as he can.


	3. Day 3

**March 24th, 1985 - Sunday**

 

El’s pretty good with her TV, with all things considered. The little set with the fuzzy screen usually has _something_ going on when Steve arrives, and to be honest, he wouldn’t be surprised if it was on more often than it was off. This is evidenced pretty strongly by the fact that she knows what every single button does on the remote control.

“It was emotional, kid, I’m telling you now. Never seen television like it.”

“Did you cry?”

“Did I _cry_ ,” Steve says scornfully, “it was the finale of the greatest show ever made, of _course_ I cried. Even my dad got all blink-y. You can’t _not_ tear up at ‘M*A*S*H’ ending, El.”

El makes a _hmm_ noise, and changes the channel with an emphatic click.

“Oh, look, ‘Columbo’! My mom loves that shit,” he grins, sitting up and pointing randomly at the screen. El lets the remote fall into her lap with curiosity when he starts squinting: “and… _just one more thing_ ,” he says, waving crossed fingers at her, like he’s holding a cigarette.

“You’re him!”

“Damn right I am. Although I’d rather be Baretta, to be honest.”

El frowns. “Who’s Baretta?”

He slumps back down onto the couch, lounging over the blanket piles. “Tony Baretta, man. He’s a tough, no-nonsense cop. Master of disguise. I used to watch that all the time when I was a kid. Well... when my mom wasn’t looking, anyways. _Don’t do da crime if you can’t do da time_ , that’s what he’s always s--”

El looks very alarmed.

“Okay,” Steve admits, “that particular impression needs some work. But clearly that means he’s too cool to copy, right?”

“Right,” she replies, although she doesn’t sound convinced.

“Seriously, he was awesome. He solved crime in this awesome car called ‘The Blue Ghost’, and his roommate was a bird.”

“Did the bird solve crime too?”

“No, but sometimes he’d chat with it to work things out. And he’d talk to his dad, too, but his dad was dead… Hang on,” Steve frowns, “I think Baretta was _crazy_. Oh.”

“What else did you watch as a kid?” El asks, bundling herself up in her massive button down. The sleeves hang over her hands, and she has to keep sliding them back up.

“Uh,” he says, thinking of Charlie’s Angels - or at least thinking of Jill Munroe, and quickly pushing _those_ particular thoughts away. “Hm. ‘Mork and Mindy’...?”

El lights up: “I like Mork and Mindy.”

“Seen a lot?”

She nods vigorously, biting back a smile. “Yes. I like Mork.”

“Me too, that’s Robin Williams. He was in ‘Moscow on the Hudson’, I think, but I never caught that movie.”

“What about your favourite _movies?”_ El asks. For a second, Steve’s a bit taken aback - he honestly can’t remember the last time someone asked him that so earnestly, and it throws him for a loop for a good two seconds.

“I like ‘Risky Business’,” he says quickly. “And ‘All The Right Moves’, but ‘Risky Business’ was my favourite.”

El frowns like she’s never heard of them. _Oh, god, she’s never heard of them,_ Steve realises, which segues into a very enthusiastic explanation on _how much he loves Tom Cruise’s work ever since he saw his performance in ‘The Outsiders’, which is another fucking awesome film, El, but whoops, don’t tell the Chief I just said ‘fucking’ in front of you_.

It turns out that El would quite like to see all three of those movies. (Steve wonders if they’re suitable for a kid her age, but then remembers how many dead bodies she’s a) seen and b) _created_ , and thinks maybe he’s not in a position to judge.) He tries to bring up ‘Terminator’, but gets a long shake of the head in response - and to be fair, yeah, the commercials for that were pretty scary. He can’t blame her.

“I think you’d like ‘Happy Days’, though.”

“Movie?”

“Nah,” he grins, “the show, it’s a series.”

El thinks very hard, and nods. “I always miss it. It’s on at the same time as ‘All My Children’.”

“You watch ‘ _All My Children_ ’?!” he asks, disgusted. “ _El_. Come on, buddy, that’s not something you should be into. It’s terrible.”

“But it’s got new words in.”

“Yeah,” he says, “but think about this - the Fonz is _magic_.”

El blinks. “Magic?” she breathes.

“You bet he is,” Steve grins, and bops her arm with a cushion. “A little like you, kid. It’s called the Fonzie Touch, he can make any broken machine work just by hitting it some. _Eyyyy_. I wish I could do that, but the librarian keeps yelling at me for slapping the busted copy machine in the reference section.”

El grins wickedly, and sits on her hands. “I don’t have to hit things,” she smiles, and, with the remote abandoned in her lap, makes the volume increase and decrease in waves on the television set.

Steve watches in awe.

“Can you change the channel?”

“Uh-huh,” she grins. It jumps over to NFL trading interviews. “Steve? I don’t understand this program.”

“What, the NFL stuff? That’s football,” he says, “but I don’t really play that, either. My game’s basketball.”

“Basketball,” she tries, letting the word roll out of her mouth.

“You’ve never played?” he asks, and the question feels stupid as soon at it leaves his lips. Of course she hasn’t. She’s been holed up in here the entire time, _Jesus_ , Steve.

“No.”

“I’ll teach you sometime,” he smiles, “yeah? Dribbling’s easy, you’d be great at it.”

Her tongue pokes out.

“Not that kind of dribbling. It’s when you bounce the ball so you can move around the court.”

“Oh,” she says, nodding, and flicks her head in time to the channel-surfing again. A made-for-TV movie. Some commercial for a paper punching machine. The news.

The six o’clock news.

“Oh, shit, is that the time?”

“Late?” El asks, leaning over the back of the couch with wide eyes when Steve vaults it.

“Just a bit,” he says, sounding strained. “Sorry, kid, but I gotta get home. My dad’s gonna tear me a new one. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah? I’ll be over after school.”

He sticks his hand out in a thumbs up, waiting to see if she’ll copy - and she does, to his absolute delight, which prompts a _double_ thumbs up. _Eyyyy._ With one last fleeting grin, he sweeps his hair out of his face, listens to see if El locks the door after him (she does), and sprints off into the night, jumping the tripwire as he goes.

It’s another twenty minutes until he pulls into the driveway, practically falling out of his car in his haste to get inside. He briefly considers breaking into his own window, so he can stroll down the stairs like he’d been home all damn evening. That probably wouldn’t cut it today, though.

“I’m late, I know, I’m _sorry_ ,” he says immediately, taking his shoes off at the door as his father rounds the hallway corner. “I lost track of time. It won’t happen again.”

“Where the hell _were_ you?”

“Hanging out with a friend.”

His dad’s jaw hardens.

“Jeez, Dad, a _friend_. I swear.”

“Well, that ‘friend’ better know that they held you up, big time. You’re heading towards a life without basketball, young man,” his dad says. For god’s sake, Steve had thought they were past the threatening once he hit eighteen. Guess he was wrong again. _To absolutely no-one’s surprise,_ he thinks, feeling anger burning in his throat.

“It won’t happen again,” he repeats.

“It better not. If your grades end up slipping,” his dad says, talking over his shoulder now that he’s retreating back to his office, “ _we won’t keep you_. Don’t expect us to pay your way after graduation, Steve.”

Steve clenches his hands, hard. He’s so white-knuckled that he has to consciously relax, just in case he breaks something.

Tomorrow was Monday, and he’d get to hang out with El after school. No point in jeopardising that. Not when Hopper was counting on him, and El was expecting him, and he actually, genuinely, _really_ wanted to go.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr at [futureboy-ao3](http://futureboy-ao3.tumblr.com/), my fic blog. You can find my main [here](http://futureboy.tumblr.com/)!


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